


Skyfall Is Where We Start

by PanBoleyn



Series: The Iron Gauntlet and the Silk Glove [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:36:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'At least Stannis won't laugh at Renly if the boy tries to follow him around when he's a bit older and takes a tumble on the flagstones. It's not much, not much at all, but perhaps it's enough to be going on with.'</p><p>Robert never loved his brothers, but this is not a story about Robert. This is about Stannis, and Renly, and glimpses of how they might have been different, had they let themselves love each other as brothers usually do.</p><p>(Title from Adele's 'Skyfall', mostly because I was tickled pink by the stags at Skyfall Manor in the newest Bond film.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.

He shouldn't have this. He doesn't deserve it. Stannis knows it's petty and childish to hate Robert for being here, for being in charge of the funerals and for being the new Lord of Storm's End, but it's true. Robert doesn't care about it, he's feckless and even if he wasn't he's gone. He's gone back to the Vale, with Lord Jon Arryn. Stannis knows, of course, that the reason his brother's still being fostered now is to learn to be a lord, since their father is no longer there to teach him, but it still seems like a terrible idea, to have the Lord of Storm's End not in Storm's End. Leaving them with no one but Maester Cressen and their castellan.

 

And it is _them_ , because scant months before they died, Mother gave Father one last son. The day Robert leaves for the Vale, Stannis goes to the nursery. He was here, once, with Robert who was only a year older. Robert, who was never the kind of elder brother Stannis could look up to. He used to laugh when his little brother slipped and fell because he was trying desperately to catch up to him. Stannis is thirteen now, too old for those things, and probably too old to still be angry about it. But he is, he cannot help it.

 

Still, he studies his little brother, and thinks that Renly won't ever know their parents. Luckier for him, he won't know Robert that well either. All he'll have for family is Stannis, and Maester Cressen. The maester is in the doorway, looking concerned, and Stannis offers him a thin-lipped smile. Better Cressen than that irritating septon who wants Stannis to return to the sept. He never will. The gods do not exist, he learned that when he watched his parents drown.

 

He looks back at Renly, seven months old and now awake and sitting up, blinking at Stannis with the blue eyes of all the Baratheons. He's not a warm person, Stannis, even at thirteen he's already distant and formal. He doesn't know how to talk to people, how to charm them like Robert can. He hates being among people, would rather be alone. It's not shyness, he tells himself – proper young ladies and small children are shy, half-grown men are not. He just doesn't like it. And he doesn't know how to be a brother, but Renly doesn't have anyone else.

 

If there is one truth about Stannis, it's that he accepts his responsibilities. He has one to those wide blue eyes that belong to a boy who doesn't yet know what he will never have. “I won't be good at this,” he informs Renly, ignoring for the moment how idiotic it is to speak to a baby, and grateful that the maester has left them alone now. “I will probably be terrible at this and you're going to hate me. But I'm not Robert. I won't leave like that. I will at least... be present, for what it's worth.”

 

It probably won't be worth much, but Stannis is going to try. At least he won't laugh at Renly if the boy tries to follow him around when he's a bit older and takes a tumble on the flagstones. It's not much, not much at all, but perhaps it's enough to be going on with.


	2. Look At Me, I'm a Dragon!

Renly is only four years old, so his world consists almost entirely of his nursery and the occasional trips beyond it with the septa who will care for him until he's a little bit older. Seven years old, and then he will have proper lessons with Maester Cressen, not the silly ones Septa Amilane gives him now.

 

Though the septa does tell good stories.

 

“Tell me about Balerion again!” he says, bouncing in his seat. The septa shakes her head at him.

 

“No, no more of that, I think, Master Renly. You get too overexcited,” she tells him sternly, and instead he has to practice writing his letters. He pouts through the lesson but he does it well, because he likes to do well. Also, Stannis writes very neatly and Renly doesn't want him to be disappointed that Renly can't. His brother doesn't smile much, but Renly can make him smile, and he likes that. He likes making everyone smile really, but when he makes Stannis do it, it's special because he's the only one who can do that.

 

Septa Amilane puts away the paper and the pens, and starts to tell him about the gods. She's just begun to teach him about the Warrior when the door to the nursery creaks open. “That's quite enough, Septa,” Stannis says, and he's frowning like he always does when he catches Renly and Septa Amilane at religious lessons. The septa purses her lips, the way she does just before she scolds Renly, but Stannis is seventeen and too old to be scolded. So instead she just leaves when Stannis jerks his head toward the door. Renly, free of his lesson, jumps out of his chair and runs over to Stannis.

 

“Why don't you like when she tells me about the gods?” He's never had time to ask before, so he's going to take the chance to.

 

“Because she fills your head with enough silly tales without telling you those as well. At least the others happened.”

 

“But... The gods are real, everyone says so.” This is confusing, and Renly doesn't know if he likes confusing things. So instead he grabs Stannis' hand and tugs him over to the window. “Help me up to the seat, please.” That gets him Stannis rolling his eyes, but Renly knows he does that when other people would laugh, so that's all right. And he does help him up, and Renly can look out the window at the harbor.

 

“Did you know a long time ago Balerion flew over, right here?” he asks, looking back at his brother. Stannis nods.

 

“Everyone knows that. It's just new for you because you're so young and you don't know anything.”

 

Renly sticks his tongue out, because Stannis isn't any fun when he's like this. He turns on the seat and before Stannis can stop him, he jumps, landing hard enough on his older brother that they both tumble to the ground. “I'm Balerion!” he shouts as they fall, Stannis landing with an “Oomph!”

 

“Don't do that, Renly, you could have us both injured,” Stannis says, and his voice is stern but his mouth is twitching like it does when Renly makes him want to laugh but he won't let himself. So when Stannis sits up, with Renly in his lap, Renly bounces a little.

 

“But it's fun to be a dragon, and you like it too. You're smiling!”

 

“I am _not_ smiling.” But he _is_ , and that's enough for Renly to beam at him.


	3. Left Behind

Stannis isn't sure how much longer they can hold out. Damn Robert anyway, what was he thinking? It was wrong of the prince to take Robert's betrothed, the Stark girl, but to start a war against their rightful king over it? Stannis thinks his brother may well be overreacting. Stark he understands – the murder of the Lord of Winterfell and his heir was horrific and Eddard Stark wanting to fight for them and his sister makes perfect sense. Stannis even understands that Aerys is truly mad, and should not be ruling, but the trouble is that the Iron Throne is his right.

But in the end, he has to stand with his brother. Which leads him here, the lot of them starving to death in the keep because the thrice-damned Tyrells have them under siege. Robert should be here, to watch the faces of their people get narrow, their bodies turn to skin and bones. He should be here to listen to Renly curled up and crying. This is his fault, his responsibility, but where is he? Not here, never here. Stannis is, though, and one way or another he is going to keep fighting until he's dead.

They eat the horses first, that's obvious enough. The cats are next, and Stannis tells himself that he's never liked cats so it's of little importance. Renly cries, though – he doesn't want to eat cats that he played with when they were kittens, but eventually hunger wins out and Stannis tells himself his brother's tears don't make him feel guilty. They eat the rats because no one wants to eat the dogs, but they have to eat the dogs too. Renly cries all the more, and Stannis grinds his teeth because there is nothing he can do about it.

The animals are gone, and they all know what's next. Surrender, or... Stannis will not surrender, he imprisons his castellan when the man tries to do so in his place. Imprisons, and considers killing, but not just to execute. To... He is in his study (Robert's), steeling himself to give the order, when a servant boy stumbles in. “My lord! There is – there's a ship. It slipped past the siege, a smuggler! He brought us food!”

Onions, mostly, and salted fish, but enough of these to last them a while. The smuggler is a man a few years older than Stannis, with close-cropped brown hair and beard. His name is Davos, and Stannis thanks him with polite courtesy. Later, when Robert has the crown but not his lost love, when he strip Storm's End from Stannis and gives it to Renly, when he gives Stannis barren Dragonstone as though he should be grateful for it, Stannis summons Davos to him.

“For the service you gave, I will give you a knighthood,” he tells the man. “I will give you land on Cape Wrath, a keep for you and your family.” The man stares at him, shock in his eyes though his face is calm, and Stannis holds up a hand. “But, for your crimes, you will also lose the tips of four fingers. For a good deed does not undo bad.”

Davos nods, unflinching. Stannis can respect that. “It is... more than fair, my lord. But I must insist upon one thing.”

Insist? “And that is?”

“That you take the fingertips yourself, my lord,” Davos says easily, as though he is not speaking of his own maiming. And it is that, the calm way in which Davos takes both reward and punishment, the blunt way he speaks, that makes Stannis do just that. It is these qualities in Davos, these and his unswerving loyalty, that make Stannis trust him.

Later, his wife and his brother will remark that Davos is his only friend. Stannis is not sure of that. But he owes something to Davos, and Davos owes something to him. And they both understand each other. Perhaps that is friendship, but he wouldn't know.


	4. The Fawn and the Imp

Weddings may be grand affairs, but they hold no real appeal for a boy of eight, so as soon as he sees his chance, Renly flees the hall. Poor Stannis is old enough that he's forced to stay – and his funny insistence on duty means he'd probably make himself anyway - but Renly will make it up to him later. For now he slips away, down to the dungeons where Robert put the dragon skulls. And it turns out that he's not the only one down there. Then again, he's not the only eight-year-old boy at the wedding, either.

Tyrion Lannister is small enough to be three or four, and he blinks up at Renly (who is not only not a dwarf, but tall for his age) with mismatched eyes. “So you're the little stag.”

“And you're the Lannister Imp.”

“You know, I was hoping that name would stay in Lannisport.”

“Small chance of that now your sister's Queen.” Renly grins. “I could call you Cub instead, but think on it. 'The Imp, the Queen, and the Kingslayer'; it could be a ballad one day.”

“And 'The Three Stags: Usurper, Dullard, and Fawn', couldn't?”

They glare at each other for a moment, and then both laugh at the same time. Truly, they both deserved the comments the other threw at them. “So, Fawn, what brings you here?” Tyrion says after a moment.

“Weddings are dull, and dragons are not, Cub,” Renly tells him with a shrug. “I imagine you're here for the same reasons.”

“I love dragons,” Tyrion confides. “I read about them all the time.” Renly wrinkles his nose.

“Reading is boring,” he informs the other boy cheerfully. “I'd rather be ridi- Oh. Can you? Ride, I mean?” He shifts from foot to foot, suddenly feeling guilty; Renly is not what anyone might call a tactful child, but he doesn't think it would be nice to hear someone talking about a thing he couldn't do. It's frustrating enough to be a child when his brothers are adults. 

“No,” Tyrion says, scowling. “I think I could, though. If I had the right saddle. I'll have to make it up myself, though. I've been reading about saddlework so I can,” he adds with a triumphant smile. “So reading is far from boring, it's useful.”

Renly rolls his eyes, but says, “Well, once you make that saddle, we'll have to go riding sometime. Mayhaps when I am visiting my brother and you are visiting your sister, we can ride through the city and have adventures?” 

The other boy's grin is nothing short of wicked. “Adventures? I think I like that, Fawn.”


	5. Direct Gazes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is where we start becoming more AU. I want to state, I've nothing against Selyse Florent - she's not the most pleasant character, but neither is Stannis and I like him. But this combination occurred to me, and I wanted to try it out.

Stannis never really considered his marriage. He'd always known he would marry, a useful marriage for the family. It was a fact of life, not a thing to dwell on. But this is definitely not what he'd expected. Jon Arryn speaks of healing the wounds left by the war, and even now is trying to convince Robert to agree that there should be a marriage between a child of his and a Martell. He's also apparently trying to get Ned Stark to offer a child to the Dornish – probably hoping that if Stark agrees, Robert will follow suit.

 

But for now the children in question are unborn or too young, so when Jon Arryn takes Stannis aside after a small council meeting and makes the suggestion that he marry Lady Ashara Dayne, Stannis gives the idea the consideration it warrants. Lady Ashara is a bit of a scandal – betrothed to Ned Stark once, she gave him a son before she knew that Jon Arryn had told Stark his betrothal was void and had him married off to Catelyn Tully. The boy lives with his father in the North, and the rumors say that Ashara would have pitched herself from the towers of Starfall after the loss of her son and the death of her brother at Stark's hands except for the fact that her son still lived.

 

Stannis, for his part, imagines that he ought to be troubled by this history, but by and large he is not. The lady acted in good faith, and probably so did Stark, really. The boy... Well, the boy isn't in his mother's care, and if he was, it would be like marrying a widow with a child. He will need an heir, even if it's for a spire of rock rather than the family seat that ought to be his, and Lady Ashara is proven fertile. The Dornish hate them – as well they should; Stannis can see why Rhaegar's heirs could not have been let to live, but Elia Martell could have been spared, and the brutality that the Lannister men showed was unnecessary. It served only to make things worse with Dorne.

 

So he agrees.

 

Ashara Dayne is tall, dark-haired and with the famed Dayne eyes. Renly writes a poem – he's ten now, and fancies himself a courtier – describing his goodsister-to-be's eyes as 'amethyst', while Stannis ignores him. Women and the marriage bed hold little interest for him, but even he notices the startling contrast of her violet eyes against her skin when he takes the the purple cloak with its sword and star from her shoulders, replacing it with a golden cloak bearing a crowned black stag. Her eyes meet his, direct rather than looking down as a proper lady should, and he finds he respects her the more for it. He thinks he can come to an understanding with a woman who is direct, who doesn't play the coquettish games of so many women.

 

Renly, at the wedding feast, saves Stannis from the awkwardness of dancing by leading out his goodsister himself. They should look comical, because though he is tall for his age Ashara is still taller than Renly, but they do not. After, Renly comes over to Stannis, grinning. “You ought to dance with your wife, dear brother.”

 

“I don't have time to dance.”

 

“It's a feast, of course you do. You simply don't want to make a fool of yourself with how terrible you are at it.”

 

Stannis grinds his teeth and doesn't deign to respond; Renly throws back his head and laughs. “You're going to wear your teeth to stumps if you do too much of that. And I never said I blamed you for not wanting to look the fool, especially as Robert is doing enough of that for all of us.” This is a court wedding, much as Stannis had not liked the idea, so of course Robert has gotten himself utterly drunk and is even now flirting with a pale, dark-haired woman who likely reminds him of his lost Lyanna.

 

Stannis had made it clear from the start that the bedding ceremony would not happen, so all he has to face are the japes from Renly and Tyrion Lannister (what Renly sees in the dwarf he still doesn't know, but they are always together when both at court) and Robert's drunken comments before he is alone in the bedchamber with his new wife. Ashara looks at him with that same directness as she did before. “At least you do not drink as your brother does.”

 

It almost draws a smile from him. “My lady, I can assure you that whatever I may be, I have nothing in common with my brother save our shared blood.”

 

“Well then, my lord, you and I may do well enough after all.”

 

They just might.


	6. Catch A Falling Star

Their child quickens in Ashara's womb six months after their marriage, and Stannis feels as useless when he thinks about becoming a father as he did when he was thirteen and looking at his younger brother in his cradle. For her part, there is a peculiar look on Ashara's face that he has previously only seen when ravens come from Winterfell's maester.

 

It is after she has read one of these letters that Ashara looks up, the expression in her eyes pinning Stannis to his seat. “If the child is a boy, I want him called Arthur.”

 

Names... Stannis hasn't thought about them. Steffon, perhaps, for his father, Cassana for his mother if the child is a girl. It seems a good idea to honor them, if not necessary. Robert has _not_ found it necessary – his son is called Joffrey, a Westerlander name. He considers his wife, uncertain of his reply, and finally he says, “Why?” He knows why that particular name if any, because of her brother Ser Arthur Dayne, but what he means is, why so insistent, why specifically their firstborn.

 

“Because I loved my brother, as you love Robert and Renly.”

 

“I don't love Robert.” It is all he can think of to say.

 

“No, you don't, do you?” Ashara murmurs. “Renly, then; you love him. I think the fact that you suffer his japes when you silence all others makes that very clear.”

 

“I...” He doesn't think in terms of love, but he supposes she's right. “Very well, you loved your brother and you wish to honor him. But I have a father who I might wish to honor – you seem to feel quite strongly about this, and love or no I cannot understand why.”

 

Her eyes shift a little, as though she wants to look away but instead she sets her jaw and her gaze remains steady on his. “I gave my first son the name I knew his father wanted, and now he has nothing of me. His name is of the North and the Eyrie, and his father took him from me with nothing of Starfall to remind him that he is also mine. Our children will be your heirs, Baratheons of Dragonstone and Storm's End, but they are Daynes of Starfall after that. I want it to be something they never forget, because their brother is hardly allowed to know it.”

 

The sheer passion in her voice startles him – Stannis can't comprehend the sudden fury, the impossible _pain_ in Ashara's voice. “If they had taken your brother away, would it not haunt you? Imagine that,” she continues in a low, fierce voice, “but a thousand times _worse_.”

 

Actually, he does not have to imagine it – it is easy enough to think how it would be now, if Renly had been raised apart from him as he and Robert were raised apart. Easy enough to imagine that his younger brother might be as distant from him as his older brother, to imagine the calm order the years after his parents' deaths and before the Rebellion would have been without a boy who seemed intent on mischief, always leaping on him like a wildling or trailing him like a shadow. It would have been peaceful, and yet... The image is lonely, for all he remembers being irritated at the time.

 

His wife did not have a choice when the great good friend of her new king insisted he take their son, on the heels of telling her that her beloved brother died at his hand. All she has are ravens, not even from the boy yet, or his father, but a maester. It surprises Stannis, how suddenly he's angry on his wife's behalf. And he cannot change anything, because for all that he is the King's brother by blood Eddard Stark is the brother Robert chose. He won't deny the man the son he wants. But he can do this. “Arthur, then, if the child is a boy. If it is a girl?”

 

“When Arthur was small, before he decided to be a knight of the Kingsguard, he spoke of marrying Princess Elia, that they would have lovely daughters named for Elia and for me, but then he would call his last daughter – he was sure he would have three, as lovely as his sister and the girl he loved, he said – but he would name his last daughter Shireen, a name that was just hers.”

 

Their daughter, when she is born, has eyes that darken more to indigo than Baratheon blue or Dayne violet, and she is named Shireen Baratheon in the sept. The next raven from Winterfell includes a second note, also written by the maester but at the dictate of a small boy, and the signature at the bottom is crooked and shaky, the hand of a boy just learning to write.

 

“If Stark ever decides that the boy should go elsewhere, if you would like him here I would not object,” Stannis says, out of the blue one night much as Ashara's demand about their child's name had been. The idea has never bothered him – he would extend the same courtesy to a wife who had been widowed, her child fostered with the father's family. He would consider it his duty to offer his wife's son the protection she, as his wife, already has. But he has never mentioned it, and he thinks perhaps he should.

 

Ashara looks at him like she has no idea what to make of him. Stannis cannot blame her; he does not know what to make of _himself_ in recent days.

 


	7. Little Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look, it's Loras! Well, you knew he was coming eventually, right?
> 
> Also, a lot of people write Renly and Loras with what seems to be a large age difference, but really there's only about four years between them, as I say here. Renly was probably very young to have a squire, but he was also pretty young to be a lord in his own right - and remember Robb (I know he was a king, but Renly is just shy of being a prince) had squires when he was only fifteen.
> 
> Oh, and Renly punching Randyll Tarly? A moment of sheer authorial indulgence because I've been wanting someone to deck him since book one.

 Renly is fourteen and apparently that means he is old enough to be the Lord of Storm's End in truth instead of just in name now. He's not entirely sure that he'd agree, but if it means no longer having to be Robert's squire he'll smile, nod, and go with it. The three years since Robert thought having his brother as a squire alongside one of Cersei's Lannister cousins was a good idea have been annoying. Daven is far from the worst of the Lannisters, the son of Tywin's cousin and goodbrother Ser Stafford, but that doesn't mean Renly likes him. He wouldn't have minded so much if it were Tyrion, but Tyrion will never be anyone's squire, and so Renly is stuck with Daven, who is pleasant enough but hardly diverting company. Except when his hair catches the light in certain ways, but Renly's uncomfortable thinking like that.

 

And as for Robert...

 

Robert is a soldier, not a king. Kingship doesn't sit well with him, and in fact it is Lord Arryn as Hand who rules the realm as best he can. Robert tends to poke his nose in at the worst times, Renly's noticed. Some whisper, when they don't realize that the King's youngest brother is about, that it's not so different than when Tywin Lannister ruled as Hand, at least in the sense of the King being naught but a figurehead. It isn't easy for Renly to go unnoticed, but Ashara says he ought to try from time to time, and his goodsister is right – he hears things when he does, useful things sometimes. Or ridiculous things, far more often.

 

And, once, when someone spoke of Shireen and the greyscale that struck in her infancy and left her face marred, voicing the opinion that it would have been better had it killed her, listening got him in trouble because he didn't care who Randyll Tarly was, no one spoke of his niece that way. He did manage to bruise the man's cheekbone before he realized the punch was coming, so Renly still considers it worth it.

 

Robert knights him before the court before he lets him leave for Storm's End, and Renly doesn't really know why. Knighthoods are supposed to come after a good performance at a tourney, or earned in battle. He's never been in battle, having been too young still when the Greyjoys rose, and while he does well enough in tourneys he's not particularly good either. He doesn't ask, though, and rides off to Storm's End after a truly monumental effort to wring a promise of letters from Stannis. Ashara's happy to write, Shireen too, young as she is, and he'll write to little Arthur as soon as the boy's old enough to read, but Stannis considers writing for the sake of writing to be frivolous. It's only when Renly threatens to send him an avalanche of ravens with absolutely pointless notes that his brother agrees to write – occasionally.

 

Renly is used to Stannis, and so he knows it's the best he's going to get.

 

The return to Storm's End is strange – he hasn't been there since Robert was crowned, both of the King's brothers residing at court since then, and his memories are a confusing mix of happy moments before the rebellion and the awful memories of the siege. Robert thinks Renly doesn't remember, and Stannis has never asked, but Renly hasn't ever quite forgotten how even when he made himself swallow meat that he knew came from a cat or a rat or a dog, his stomach still ached and his body trembled, weak from too little food. He remembers the whispers, remembers it all. So maybe that's part of why he insists on lavish decoration, starts hosting feasts and parties for his bannermen. It's fun – he can understand, to some degree, why Robert indulges so in his pleasures because Renly likes pleasure too, and the freedom to have it is wonderful – but at the same time it banishes the taint of darker times from the castle.

 

It's four months into his lordship when the reason for Robert knighting him becomes clear. While, technically, one can have a squire without being a knight if one is a lord, it's still best to be both. The letter from Jon Arryn explains that Renly is to have a squire; the youngest of the Tyrell boys, Loras. He's ten to Renly's fourteen, but if he's anywhere as naturally talented as his brother Garlan, who Renly met at the celebrations for Joffrey's nameday last year, he'll be better than Renly in no time at all.

 

Loras Tyrell, when he arrives, is a snotty little brat, Renly decides. He looks at everything like it's beneath him, and it makes Renly furious. He's quite proud of Storm's End, of the castle that they say has magic in the walls, that can withstand any storm without crumbling. If this little rose hates it so much, then he can go back to Highgarden or any of the seven hells.

 

For the first few weeks, it goes on like this – and Renly finds that, if anything, Loras might be more talented than Garlan, because he's close to outstripping Renly already and that's just _embarrassing_. But then a raven comes from Highgarden, and Renly happens to be there when Loras opens it, gripping the paper so tight he tears it a little. Which is when the young lord realizes his squire might be an arrogant little shit, but at least some of that is a way to hide his homesickness.

 

Like how Stannis hides the fact that people make him uncomfortable by refusing to socialize. Like how Robert hides his discontent, his never fading grief, in wine and wenching and too-loud laughter. Like how Ashara smiles at Shireen and Arthur to hide her longing for the first child who ought to be there too. There are entirely too many people hiding in Renly's life, and he can't fix it for anyone else, but perhaps...

 

“Loras, your nameday's in a month, yes?”

 

Loras looks at him, those Tyrell-gold eyes wary. “Yes, my lord.”

 

“How about we invite your family here to celebrate then, hmm? Oh, and, I'm only four years older than you, you might as well call me Renly. Especially as I think you're going to start trouncing me in the practice yard before this year is out.”

 

The grin he gets in response leaves him feeling far more pleased than he expects, but Renly grins back and, on impulse, reaches out and musses Loras' curls. Loras jumps and immediately resettles his hair.

 

“Why did you do that?”

 

“I don't know, a whim took me. You'll find I have those.”

 

“Am I going to wish you didn't have... whims?”

 

“Oh, probably. But then you'll get used to it.”

 

This time, Loras Tyrell's unimpressed look just makes Renly laugh.


	8. I Loved A Lad As Fair As Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided, since my chronology's already a tad fuzzy, that I wasn't going to worry so much about whether my scenes were in order. Therefore I bring you the rest of the Renly/Loras arc in this chapter and the next - after that we will have some Stannis with his family and Davos, then obviously end where we began with the brothers. 
> 
> Also, blame Davos Seaworth for being one of the hardest characters to write ever. And this is coming from someone who's had to write Thomas Cromwell!

How it is that Tyrion's visits to Storm's End always end up becoming a tour of the local brothels Renly isn't quite sure, except that he thinks vaguely it's probably good that he puts appearances in here now and again. Though since it's always _with Tyrion_ , perhaps he's just making things worse. It's hard to work that out with his mind fogged by ale. Tyrion vanished earlier with his chosen whore, and Renly managed to convince two of them that all he wants from them is a show.

 

He stares at the women on the bed and doesn't really see them at all, certainly isn't aroused by them. The ladies here are mostly pretty, and all quite skilled, he's sure, but women have never been what he craves. His desires for men have mostly been fleeting, or indulged quietly in different sorts of pleasure houses in King's Landing. He has to go to those in disguise, knowing full well that if he's ever recognized it won't go well for him.

 

Oh, and there was that trip to Sunspear, and one fascinating night with Oberyn Martell, but Renly prefers to let that remain a haze of pleasant memory.

 

His trouble now is a young man with soft brown curls and gold-brown eyes. Loras is his squire, by all the gods, he is Renly's _responsibility_ for all that there's no more than four years between them. If he learned one thing from Stannis, it was how to fulfill his responsibilities. He shouldn't want to kiss Loras, to run his fingers through those curls and... No. He is not thinking about it, because it isn't what he wants. Or rather, it isn't what he _wants_ to want. Or so he tells himself as the whores fall back on the bed, spent, and he smiles at them as though pleased, tossing money their way.

 

On their return to Storm's End, he and Tyrion go past the training yard, where Loras is performing drills. He has no opponent, is simply going through the motions with his dull practice sword, and Renly has never seen anything so captivating. He freezes, forgetting that he is with his friend who sees everything. And Renly's staring is hardly subtle. To Tyrion's credit, he waits until they're in Renly's library before he says anything about it. “Nothing good ever comes of looking at people that way, Fawn. Believe me, I know.”

 

Renly doesn't know the whole story behind Tyrion's brief marriage to someone called Tysha. Just that it happened, and that it all ended very badly. It was after that when Tyrion began visiting whores, making such a habit of it that even _Robert_ might be hard-pressed to be a greater patron of brothels. But now, Renly just frowns. “I've no idea what you're on about,” he lies, and he's actually not a terrible liar. Except when he's speaking to Stannis, or Tyrion. He doesn't even try with his brother, but with his friend he gives it a go.

 

Not that he gets anywhere. “You forget I know you. And I know you don't enjoy women like I do.”

 

“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I don't wish to pay for it?”

 

“Yes, it did, but then one day you got very, very drunk and told me about Oberyn Martell. You don't recall that, do you?”

 

“Oh, gods,” Renly mutters, grinding his teeth.

 

“Stop that, you don't want to become your brother, do you?” Tyrion quips. “Now then. You can't possibly think I would care. Fuck who you like, whether they've got a cock or a cunt. But looking at the Tyrell boy like you do is only going to bring you trouble. Believe me.”

 

“Better Stannis than Robert. And leave it, will you, Tyrion? It's not as though anything will come of it,” Renly says bitterly. “He is my squire, after all I cannot...”

 

Tyrion raises an eyebrow. “There are only four years between you! He is five and ten, old enough to know what he wants, and mayhaps that could be you. Why not have a go? If he does not want you, he isn't going to tell anyone, not when your brother's King.”

 

“You make it sound like we should have a tumble and be done with it.”

 

“Well, yes, I am saying that.” Tyrion shakes his head. “Except I was right, I believe. The way you look at him isn't just how a man looks at a pretty thing he wants for an hour or two.”

 

Renly scowls at him. “Not everyone only wishes for a warm body to share their bed, Tyrion. Sometimes it's... It does not matter, I keep telling you, because nothing is going to happen!”

 

“And this is why I said this is going to bring you trouble.”

 

“You are many things, Cub. Helpful, in this case, is _not_ one of them.”

 

“Ah, but would it be helpful if I told you that, when you look away, your rose of a squire watches you just as carefully?”

 

Renly doesn't answer. He would like to believe that, but he doesn't dare. Love does not tend to go well for Baratheons, after all. One only need look at Robert to see that.  


	9. I've Been Waiting On You

“How is it,” Loras laughs, “that I am your squire, _my lord_ , and yet I can best you with a blade even if I were to tie my swordhand behind my back and fight you right-handed?” Renly doesn't have the breath to answer, worn out as he is from crossing swords with Loras all the godsdamned morning. He rolls his eyes instead and steps back, dropping his practice sword to the ground and sweeping a mocking bow. They are not in the practice yard; instead they are in a hidden away grove on the castle grounds, a place Renly found on his own as a boy and has only ever shown to Loras. It's private here; they can act as the friends they are rather than the lord and squire they're supposed to be.

 

“Because you are the gods' gift to the fighting arts,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don't you ever get tired of being so much better all the time?”

 

“No, because I work at it, and so I earn it. Far more than you ever have,” Loras retorts, tossing aside his own practice sword carelessly. He flops down onto the ground, stretching like a cat, and Renly has to quickly look away. This... infatuation is getting _ridiculous_. Once he's no longer so distracted, he drops down next to the younger man, leaning back on his elbows.

 

“I don't _need_ to work at it – House Baratheon already has two fine soldiers, we don't need a third. Gods know one of us should try being good at something else.”

 

“Throwing parties and wearing fancy clothes, perhaps?”

 

“As though your clothing isn't finer than mine half the time!”

 

Loras laughs. “Well, next to the Lannisters my family is the richest in the kingdoms. But if not that, then what?”

 

“I'm not sure. Although Robert's been hinting that he may put me on the small council. I could have a go at being good at that.” Neither of his brothers care for politics, so if Renly finds some skill in that at least it would mark him out.

 

“You, helping to run the kingdoms? I'd gladly pay to see that!” Loras says, sitting up so he can look at Renly properly and smirk down at him.

 

“Oi!” Renly dives forward, tackling Loras to the ground. They tussle about like children, for once Renly having the upper hand in a fight because for all his lithe quickness, Loras can't compete with the extra force Renly's broader build gives him. He has Loras pinned to the grass before much time has passed, both of them breathless and laughing.

 

And Renly ought to roll away, he really ought, but he meets Loras' dancing eyes and then his gaze drops to his mouth, and... He's leaning in, brushing his lips over Loras' before he can think of what he is doing, what he is ruining. But he realizes it quick enough, rolling away and jumping to his feet before Loras can push him away in disgust. “I... I am...”

 

“Don't,” Loras says, on his feet as well with his fists clenched at his sides. “Don't you dare say that you are sorry, Renly Baratheon.”

 

“I... I should not have...”

 

“Oh, seven hells, _shut up_!” And then Loras is pushing him back, and Renly is surprised enough that it works, his back thudding against a tree. A moment later and Loras is the one kissing him, Renly startled enough that it takes him a moment to catch up and kiss him back. When he does, though, it's as though a dam breaks and they're pressing as close as they can, kissing like it will kill them to stop.

 

“Have you any idea,” Loras mutters breathlessly against Renly's lips, “how long I have been trying to push you into that, _my lord_? Always watching and never doing a thing, damn you.”

 

Renly can't help but laugh, nipping at Loras' lower lip. “I didn't know you noticed.”

 

“How could I _not_?” Loras draws back a little to study him. “I notice everything about you, didn't you know?”

 

 _Gods, I just might love you_ , Renly thinks dizzily, but he certainly isn't going to say that yet. He kisses Loras some more instead – because he wants to, and keeping his mouth busy will prevent too-soon declarations from spilling out.


	10. The Hardest Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stannis Baratheon. Davos Seaworth. Those two are officially among the hardest characters I've ever written. And that's a list that includes Thomas Cromwell and Katherine of Aragon! /o\ I'm not even sure why they're so tricky!
> 
> Also. Shireen and the greyscale. Hate to say it, but there's no difference here; genetics has nothing to do with greyscale and baby Shireen's living in the same place, so odds of her getting it don't change. Hence this chapter.

Shireen is six months old when the greyscale strikes. There's no epidemic on Dragonstone, no explanation for it at all; one day there's a patch of grey on her skin, and it slowly spreads. Maester Cressen speaks of mustard poultices and limes as cures, and the shrieks of a baby forced into baths far hotter than typical for a child so young ring through the keep. The septon wrings his hands and tells Stannis and Ashara that they must pray, must sacrifice and fast to induce the gods to take this affliction from their child. “Normally, my lord, my lady, the child would do this to cleanse herself... But she is too young.”

 

Stannis puts his trust in the maester rather than the septon – the former has proved his worth, the latter, well... he knows the use of the gods. Ashara has faith where he does not, though, and he doesn't stop her from spending hours in the sept, praying for their child. He almost envies her that she _can_ , because for her, it's something that she is able to do to help. He doesn't have that. He doesn't even have the illusion of that. All he has is the length of his study and the amount of times he can walk it before he sinks into a chair and considers throwing an inkwell across the room. He won't, of course, won't let himself lose control like that.

 

But it's always the same. There's never a damn thing he can do. Watching his parents' ship sink under the waves, listening to Renly crying himself to sleep during the siege, and now his daughter may be on the verge of death and there is nothing he can do about it. He pushes away from the desk and stands at his window. A storm is lashing against the walls, making the Drum boom loud enough he can hear it from here.

 

The weather was worse at Storm's End, he thinks, and on any other night the old anger at Robert for that insult would rise, but not tonight. Except... They say it's the cold and the damp that causes greyscale. Dragonstone is cold and damp in a way Storm's End never was. He doesn't want to let that train of thought continue, and he tries not to think it. They are here, what is happening is happening, and nothing will change that.

 

“It's the hardest thing in the world,” says a voice from behind him, and Stannis turns to see Davos Seaworth in his doorway. “For a parent to stand by, idle, when a child is sick.”

 

“I don't need platitudes, Davos.”

 

“And I don't offer them, my lord. I just offer truth. Matthos, he took ill with a pox once. It's not greyscale, but it's much the same in that you don't know what will happen, and for all a man can do for his family, be he the criminal I was in those days or a great lord like you, there's no way to fight any illness. It's... Well, it's as I said. There's nothing worse.”

 

Stannis turns back to the window, unable to look Davos in the eye. There's no one else he knows who is as bound to the truth as he, but right now he doesn't quite want to look at truth. A new thing, for him. “And what did you do, when there was nothing you could do?”

 

“I sat and darned torn sails, for all the good it did,” Davos tells him. “Anything to keep my hands busy so I did not drive myself mad. You have to busy yourself somehow or you won't be able to bear it.”

 

“You act like I haven't faced the same thing time and again. I know helplessness, Davos, do not presume to think I don't.”

 

“Aye, we all do,” Davos says in that unruffled way of is. “But this is different, isn't it, my lord?”

 

And damn him to the seven hells if they even exist, because he's right. Because before, there was... There was someone to blame, however distantly. King Aerys, for sending his parents away in the first place. Robert, for starting the rebellion. Redwyne and Tyrell for leading the siege. How can he blame disease? Illness isn't an enemy to fight, or resent. Stannis doesn't know what to do with himself when there's nothing to fight.

 

He doesn't know what to do when he never expected to feel so strongly. Shireen is a daughter where he needs a son; her birth had not been too disappointing when he knew his wife already had one son and he was one of three boys. Surely a brother would soon follow. But he hadn't expected – highborn men typically have little to do with their daughters. Stannis hadn't expected, when he finds his daughter might die before she's old enough to be a person, that part of him wants more than that.

 

Not that he'll be any better at it than he was at being a brother. But he wants it. More than that, he wants his daughter to live, and it kills him that there's nothing he can do to ensure that happens. He's lost in thinking this, so much so that he doesn't hear the receding footsteps when Davos leaves. He stands at the window all night, and it's not until a hand catches his wrist as the dawn stings his eyes that he realizes his brother's here. “I saw Ashara at the sept,” Renly says quietly, still so much a boy at just-turned-eleven, but serious for once in his life. “And – well, I'll let her tell you, hmm?”

 

Stannis notices Ashara in the doorway then, pale and drawn, looking as exhausted as he sudden;y feels. “Cressen,” she manages, and he has a moment to wonder, this has been a nightmare he never expected for him, what must it be for her, before she continues. “Cressen says, she's through the worst of it. He says her face will be scarred, but she'll live.”

 

Stannis nods, and his composure doesn't break, but the depth of relief he feels is utterly beyond words.


	11. Finale

Stannis isn’t at all sure what makes him tell the story. He looks at Shireen, her face marred by her childhood illness but her eyes bright, and he feels the same helplessness he did when faced with his tiny, cheerful brother.

That they both have his mother’s eyes does not help - Renly’s eyes are blue-green and Shireen’s indigo to Cassana’s sea-green, but they hold the same spirit, the same curiosity and love for life, and it is both a comfort and a torment to see his mother’s ghost in them.

It is Davos Shireen pesters for the tales that sailors and common cityfolk know, Ashara she begs for Dornish songs and legends. Cressen is tasked with teaching her to read, because at three years old Shireen already has a fascination for books. And it’s Renly, when he visits, who chases her through the halls and spins her around till she laughs and the halls of Dragonstone echo with matching bright laughter.

As his mother’s once echoed through Storm’s End, his father’s quieter laugh a lower counterpoint.

So when Stannis comes to his study one day to find his daughter curled up on the floor, head pillowed on her arm and a book within easy reach, he isn’t sure what to do. That book - it’s about the Targaryen dragons, she has a fascination for dragons though Stannis doesn’t know why - is far too difficult for her, and yet, and yet…

Stannis remembers dragging a chair to a table, and climbing up both, just to reach more books in the Storm’s End library. Robert had never understood, and Renly had always pestered him to get the books instead, but Stannis had wanted the books. Though, like Shireen, they were much too hard for him. He remembers wanting to know what was in them anyway, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, there is something of him in his daughter besides the jaw that she would be better off not having.

He wraps her in his cloak to take her back to the nursery, but Shireen stirs halfway there, blinking sleepily up at him. “I’m sorry, Papa, I was reading ‘bout the dragons.”

“About the dragons, Shireen,” he corrects automatically, and then curses himself, because really, he should not expect proper pronunciation of a three year old.

“About, Papa,” Shireen repeats with his mother’s sweet smile, but she speaks the word with Stannis’ own deliberateness. “Uncle Renly said he used to play Balerion and jump on you, so I wanted to learn more ‘bout - about him.”

Balerion, of course. Strange, the way a memory of silliness can make him feel warm inside. Yet, somehow, Stannis finds himself sitting on the edge of his daughter’s bed, telling her what he remembers about dragons, until she falls asleep again.

\---

“And so Durran and Elenei were safe in their castle until the end of their days, or so the stories say. Don’t tell your father I told you, he doesn’t like silly stories, you know.” Renly’s voice, carrying down the hallway, is full of mischief, as is the little-boy laughter that follows it.

“But it’s our history, isn’t it, Uncle Renly?” Arthur asks and Stannis, unseen outside the door, fights the urge to sigh. Legends, he wants to tell both of the children in the room, are not history, not even close. Shireen, young as she is, understands this, but Arthur…

Stannis’ son has a fascination for maps, but other than that there is nothing in him Stannis can understand. Or at least, it feels that way sometimes. He has all of the mischief Ashara still displays when she puts her mind to it, and a wildness as complete as Robert’s. But his son has none of Robert’s thoughtless cruelty, or Stannis’ own childhood shyness.

No, he is like Renly, reckless and cheerful, with his mother’s clever spirit, and he loves legends like his uncle who once clamored for tales, he explores the island they call home with the easy assurance with which his mother still fascinates a room. But he ought to know the stories he loves aren’t the truth.

“Well, we don’t know,” Renly is telling him. “Your father would say that Durran and Elenei are only tales, like the Others. But we know magic was real, because we know that once there were dragons, and so who can say?”

Stannis moves to stand in the doorway and watches them, his brother and his son, as Renly swings Arthur up onto his shoulders and they study the Painted Table. They trace the sea route from Dragonstone to Storm’s End, and the way to King’s Landing and Starfall, even up the kingsroad to Winterfell, where Ashara’s firstborn lives with his father.

There is an innocence to it all, in this boy and this half-grown man who want to believe in old stories but are practicing the ways to real places. While something in Stannis scoffs at it, something else - the part that seemed to form and grow when he looked in the infant eyes of his brother and his children, that twisted Ashara spoke of losing Jon and asked how he’d have felt to see Renly taken - wants to protect it, and both of them.

\---

“What I don’t understand is why you have him at all. Oh, arranging a match for Delena is just cleaning up Robert’s mess like you and Stannis and Jon Arryn always do, but why did you do it with one of your household knights? Why make him your ward?”

It’s a question Loras asks after Edric, like any exciteable young boy, shows off his new bow, a gift from “Robert” for his nameday. Renly supposes it’s valid enough, though he’s tempted to point out that Loras himself grew up interacting with two bastard cousins from time to time. Garth Tyrell’s boys, if Renly remembers right, and he does - he can recall family details the way Stannis can recall the precise strength of arms each of those families possesses. But Loras has already said he only knew them in passing, that it’s Willas who, since his accident, has inexplicably gotten rather well acquainted with several of the Highgarden bastards (and there are several, born mostly to Tyrells who never wed and so had no wife who’d be offended).

Still, he intends to brush it off until Loras adds, “And the boy even thinks it was really Robert and not Varys sending him those gifts, it all just seems ridiculous. Why do you keep that up?”

“Because he ought to have someone who doesn’t abandon him in this family,” Renly snaps with a brittle edge to his voice, and Loras gives him a startled look. That look doesn’t help, because Loras doesn’t understand, he can’t understand. His parents are alive and well, his entire family is close-knit, and he cannot understand.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… When Robert washed his hands of it all, no surprise considering he barely even sees his trueborn children… He did that before, Loras, he had already done it.”

“To who?” Loras asks, confused. “The girl I’ve heard he has in the Vale?”

“Mya, Jon Arryn says her name is. To her, yes, but not just her. They were all I had, you know? Robert and Stannis. And Cressen but a maester is different. Our parents were gone before I could recall them and all I had was what servants and Cressen told me, because the one thing Robert and Stannis have in common is they still can’t bear speaking of our parents.” Renly pauses, wishing he could rid himself of the ache in his chest, but he knows he can’t.

“They watched them die, didn’t they?”

“Yes. I understand why they don’t speak of them, that’s not what I… He went back to the Vale, Robert. He was lord and near a man, but he still went back, back to Jon Arryn and Ned Stark, the brother that he loved more than his real brothers. And, look. I know you and Stannis will never get on, I know you say he’s got no personality at all, and sometimes you’re even right. But he was there, Loras. He hadn’t a bloody clue what to do with me, I see that looking back, but he was there, he tried. During the Siege…” They rarely speak of that ghost, of the truth that Loras’ father would once have quite possibly seen Renly dead, but he must now, briefly. “Robert was gone and he never came to help us, and Stannis had no comfort, but he was there. And… Someone had to do that, be that, for Edric. Someone has to tell him he’s a Baratheon, name or no. I have to do well by him, because I was done well by.”

It’s clumsy wording, not like him, and there’s days Renly wonders if he was right, days Edric is more like Robert than he’d like, but he’s a good boy most of the time, with Delena’s quick wits and a determination that sounds like what Renly’s been told of his father, Steffon. Renly’s fond of him, even as it makes something in him ache to see Edric talking about Robert like some half-divine hero he longs to be. His nephew will learn one day that his father isn’t what he thinks, and Renly wonders how a child not yet ten is, most of the time, a better man than his full-grown, crowned father. Renly does what he can, checking with the maester and master-at-arms on his nephew’s progress, having Edric watch as he plays the lord with his bannermen, because who knows what a king’s bastard might need to know someday? He repeats the stories about Steffon, Cassana, and Baratheons going back to Orys, just like he does for Shireen and Arthur. Renly tries because it’s what he can do.

And it’s what needs to be done, even if there’s days Renly’s sure he’s mucked it all up.

\---

The screams make Renly feel more than a little sick, because it’s his fault. It’s how things ought to be, of course, in that a husband and wife should conceive children, but only Margaery is in pain. That seems unfair, somehow, natural as it may be.

His wife’s Aislinn is in there were with her, holding Margaery’s hand as the labor continues and the midwife and maester do… whatever it is that is done before the actual moment of birth. Renly wanders his castle, each corridor full of memories, and finds himself outside the practice yard, watching Loras and Jon spin ‘round with dull practice blades.

Smart of Jon, Renly thinks, to distract Loras like this; the truth is all four of them are a wreck. Aislinn says it best when she observes that Renly and Margaery’s children will, in a way, belong to all four of them, but of course Margaery is Loras’ sister and that is an extra layer of fear. One that Renly, for all he and his wife are now true friends, knows he cannot feel. The guilt is enough, though.

Ghost is a quiet presence near him, watching the mock combat even as Renly himself is. He’s used to the direwolf by now, for all that his humor had hidden shock the day he first met his current squire. Jon is another Edric, in a sense; he is nearly family and Renly knows what family deserves, what it means. So he has a Stark-looking Dayne for a squire, a Tyrell for a wife and another for a lover, and a Flowers as a surprisingly good friend. Aislinn is wickedly fun, and they both know what it is to love a beautiful, clever rose of Highgarden, maddening creatures that they are.

It’s Cortnay who comes for him, interrupting his thoughts. Cortnay is steward when Renly is here, castellan when he’s not, so it’s no surprise. “You’ve a daughter, my lord, and my lady is resting, but well,” he says quietly, and Renly laughs suddenly with a sort of giddy relief. The sound makes Loras and Jon stop, and he sees the tension in them both - Jon likes Margaery too, and he’s perhaps picturing the pretty Lannister bastard he’s courting in her place - so he smiles. “A girl, and Margaery is well.”

He lets Loras beat him to the bedchamber - a brother ought to come before a husband who is friend more than lover - but is on the younger man’s heels. Margaery looks exhausted but she’s smiling too, and Aislinn’s eyes are watery. Margaery is holding the baby when they enter, but Aislinn is the one who passes her to Loras, before Loras hands her to him.

“Cassana,” Renly says, because it’s the name he and Margaery agreed on, because it’s the perfect name, because Stannis was here all along dogging his steps but letting Renly pretend to be alone and he’s in the doorway now. Renly glances back at his brother, who looks as awkward as Renly’s ever seen him, and tilts his head to beckon him over so he can hold his niece, the way Renly’s held Arthur and Shireen, Edric, even Tommen and Myrcella.

The way his brother held him, once. Cressen told Renly, years ago, about Stannis and his promise to be there. It’s a promise he kept, and one Renly’s making now, silently.

If how his life has gone has taught him anything, the rest will follow from that.

 


End file.
